The Truth about Cinco de Mayo & Acquiescing to the Tortilla

I've been poking around my pueblo for a good Cinco de Mayo fiesta - but all's quiet in Rioerde today. No bands parading in the streets or fireworks blasting in the air like on Dia de Independencia. Not even a corner bar teaming with gente and a screechy Mariachi band. The municipal government is closed – the garage door portals of the shops below my Jimenez Hovel are shut tight. Families are behind closed doors enjoying commemorative comidas of Mole Poblano. Even the dogs seem to be taking a blessed break from their barking fits.

It’s certainly not the Jose Cuervo holiday it is in DC, where every bar in Adams Morgan offers 2x1 tequilas shot and buckets of Corona, and college kids wobble and weave along 18th Street wearing sombreros the size of café tables.

No, today in Mexico they are quietly honoring their 1862 defeat over the French at the Battle of Puebla, a proud and surprising victory for the Mexicans who were outnumbered 2-to-1 by Napoleon’s troops. Interestingly, this win had repercussions to the north, in the US of A which, at the time, was enmeshed in our Civil War (and unable to pay much attention to the struggles of our southern neighbor). With the Mexican pushback, Napoleon was obstructed from further arms sales to the Confederates; and a year later the Union was victorious at Gettysburg, leading to eventual victory in the overall war and salvation of the Union. (Maybe we North Americans do having something to celebrate today.)

Unfortunately, the win was not enough to fully rid Mexico of the French. A year later they came back with 30,000 troops, captured Mexico City, and established Emperor Maximilian as ruler of Mexico. It would take three more years, and the help of the US (once our Civil War was over) to expel the French for good, execute Maximilian, and put Juarez back into power.

As for a leftover presence of French culture in Mexico, I’ve noticed very little except this: all the barber shops and salons in SLP city seem to be named La Parisian, Jaques, Salon Eiffel, Mimi’s. It’s a lucky thing; imagine a Mexico in which the baguette had overtaken the tortilla as the primary carb and vehicle for moving food around the plate!

Ah, the tortilla. After 8 months here in Mexico, I’m happy to report: I’m finally giving-in to its power over the knife and fork. (I've always been sold on the culinary value, especially the ones hand-pressed and cooked on leña.)

But I've been resisting the tortilla as a tool, determined to uphold ‘proper table etiquette’ – at least as defined our British forefathers, knife in the left hand, fork in the right. * In restaurants here, I’m always bugging the poor waiters for a knife; oftentimes they have to embark on a mission to hunt one down – worst case scenario they arrive back at my table, when I'm halfway through my meal, with a cutting knife from the kitchen – though always delivered with a smile. Besides the basket of hot tortillas wrapped with an embroidered cloth, there’s always a holder of napkins in the middle of the table (I’ll go through most of them in a taco sitting), plus tiny bowls of salsas of various colors, textures and degrees of heat, to please an array of pallets.

I’ve been instructed and cajoled by many a Mexican guia on the proper and varied uses of the tortilla. There’s the basic scooping method, where you tear off a piece of tortilla and use it like a shovel. There’s the tortilla roll, which is quite versatile: rolling it between your palms into a little carpet, you then use it use it to push food onto your fork or simply dip the roll into your sauce. Then there’s the so-called wrapping and grabbing method, which is quite crude. I learned it very early, during Pre-service Training, on a trip to the Matauala campo, where a family had killed their best calf to celebrate our Peace Corps visit. But there was a shortage of plastic forks, 35 hungry volunteers cramped in this tiny adobe house; so the only way to pick-up very runny cabrito mole chunks was with tortillas, using the grabbing method, followed-by the wiping method to clean our Styrofoam plates.

Despite these lessons, this Cinco de Mayo morning I lay my Jiménez breakfast bar with the proper set of flatware, and a place folded napkin beneath my fork. I've cooked up some scrambled eggs with peppers and onions and a side of refried beans, and I’ve got the obligatory array condiments lined up - fresh cilantro, salsita de ajo, a bit of leftover guac, and slices of lime. (I do love the Mexican flair for condiments.) But halfway through my meal, I catch myself using nothing but two shards of corn Charras to mix the eggs and beans on my plate and shovel piled bits of tostada into my mouth – crunchy, salty, spicy, creamy and sweet all in one bite. Not only my knife, but my fork has also been relegated to the side of my plate. I had aspirations for toast with butter and jam, but somehow the slabs of uninteresting bread just sit there on my side dish and eventually wind-up in the waste basket.

So on Cinco de Mayo in my Jiménez Hovel I honor the victory of the Mexicans over the French, and the victory of the tortilla over me. Viva Mexico!

*Given that the Brits wiped out our North American indigenous population, we really have no idea what our eating customs might have been. The tortilla most certainly comes from the maize of land of Quezacotl, and managed to maintain its prominent place on the table of Mexicans, despite Indian assimilation by the Spanish.

What IS Success? Pondering my First PCV Trimester Report & 'Small Wins' with the Consejo on Sustainability Rioverde

I’m completing my first trimester report as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I’ve filled in the Java screens with my actions, results, challenges, checked the accomplishment boxes, and calculated activity headcounts. I’m taking this system seriously; I know we have to justify our existence in the work of peace and friendship. But I’ve left the Success Story screen blank. I have to let that one stew.

What is success after three months on-site in Green River?

A municipio of 88,000 situated in the Zona Media of San Luis Potosi, it is a pueblo caught in-between: between the bustling capital and the lush Huesteca; between 263 rural ejido communities and the bourgeois urban center; between dependency on their government and the US. One young campesino I met in an early foro in El Capulin community told us Peace Corps Volunteers that if he didn’t get the muni’s help (apoyo para el campo) to make the land workable again, he was going back to Estados Unidos. A threat, a Plan B, a reality.

This new Consejo de Sustentabilidad Rioverde, with whom I’ve been assigned to work, seems sandwiched in-between too. Citizens representing each of six sectors (ecologia, agricultura, emprezas, academia, social y gobierno), they’ve been selected by the mayor’s office to serve as a much-needed link between the Government and the People. They’ve been sworn-in in Cabildo, and are tasked with setting the standard for sustainability in the municipality, encouraging and creating development projects that “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Bruntland Commission, Rio Accords, 1987)

This is not small order – especially given the fact that it’s an all-volunteer board, and they’ve been given no budget or official authority or ability to raise and manage funds of their own.

So what is success for them?

As a Peace Corps volunteer doing the work of development, I am meant to create sustainable projects – changes that outlast my two-year term of service. And with this board that has sustainability in its name, it seems obvious, our work together should create an organization and initiative that outlives them too. Having a coincidence of intentions is a pretty good place to start.

So I set out to formulate our ‘primera meta’ and present this to the Consejo at our first meeting:

Crear un Consejo de Sustentabilidad eficaz y eficiente, con una misión, visión y papeles claros, con un proceso colaborativa, y con herramientas y conocimiento para continuar y crecer Agenda 21 para el largo plazo.

In other words (borrowing from one my heroes), be the sustainability we hope to create in Rioverde.

I’m tapping into my 15 years of organization development consulting experience, using my SeeChange participatory tools to create something concrete the group can react to, revise, buy-into. But instead, I hear doubts – conversation swirling around the table and going nowhere – caught between hopes for change in their pueblo, a sustainable future for their children, a government that’s participatory and transparent…and their complaints about the system, the impossibility of their task, ni modo refrains that fill the time and space and keep them sandwiched comfortably in the status quo.

I want them to discuss this first goal, believe in it, and move forward as a team to realize it. But that’s not happening. They’re avoiding it, looking outward, not inward, going off in their own directions, forgetting their aspiration to be a ‘different kind of Consejo.’

And I feel the frustration building, my own gringa desires for progress and productivity butting up against reality, my ‘just do it’ cultural programming butting up against mañana. After a couple weeks of this ‘going nowhere,’ I begin to question myself, my approach, my work with the Consejo and my reason for being here in Rioverde (maybe my energy would be better spent with la gente in the Campo), even my decision to join the Peace Corps and come to Mexico in the first place!

Luckily I recognize this is what the Buddhist’s call dukkha – the worry, doubt, second-guessing, and piling-on we do when things aren’t going how we planned. So I take a step back, breathe, take some time from the business of planning and doing and reacting to investigate my own role in the process – how my own desires for change and to have an impact might be effecting them.

Perhaps this pause and reflection is my first small ‘success.’ Because suddenly from this distance, my lens focusing in, I see: They are at the very beginning of their change journey. And so am I!

I pull out my handy Human Change Curve to remind myself – it’s a process. And the first stage is Denial – not just a river in Egypt – but a time when things are so new it’s easy to pretend they’re aren’t – to just float along like nothing’s changed and nothing’s going to. And this can be a dangerous place to get stuck because, in fact, it will prevent evolution. For the Consejo and me, it will block any hope for work together on the path toward a sustainable Rioverde – and realizing our own personal dreams.

So what is needed to get past Denial? Information.

The truth is the Consejo members don’t really know me, don’t yet trust me. Why should they? New to Mexico, to Rioverde, an outsider, here in my sitio less than two months – learning and improving as fast as I can, but still fumbling with their language, the customs, still adjusting to the extreme temperatures and the Vitamina T intake, tacos, tamales, tostadas, tortas, tamborcitos, experiencing periodic bouts of Montezuma’s revenge – and discovering the inner workings of the bureaucracy, the players, their challenges and agendas.

I need to share with the Consejo information about who I am, my background and experience as an entrepreneur, my life and interests, my hopes and fears, my ideas about participation and innovation, why I am here in their country – why I left the comforts of Washington DC and my established consulting life…for something bigger than me. Ah, and for the Comida Mexicana!

Most important (and difficult), I realize I need to let go of my game plan altogether. Perhaps the Consejo wants or even needs to work on its own, confronting their challenges, making their own discoveries, experiencing possible successes, even failure – without my involvement. This is not a comfortable realization to make. I hear the little voice inside me saying: It’s not fair, I came to help. And I find myself quickly concocting Plan B and C – how to make my life meaningful, myself useful, in the Peace Corps.

But I move forward, with my PCV partner, to hold a special meeting of the Consejo, presenting our experience and ideas and outlining the process of capacity-building and planning – and then letting go. Asking if they are in agreement to involve us – explaining it’s their decision: we cannot be effective unless they are open and ready to learn and share with us.

We go around the table then, sure to hear every voice – what are their desires, thoughts, concerns? And one by one, I hear agreement: yes they do want and need the help – several of them say, in fact, they joined this Consejo in order to learn and create a new model.

I am relieved, in truth. And beneath the agreement, I hear Resistance: impatience from a few voices, ‘vamos adalente’. We don’t want to waste time. We are busy. And tiny complaints: do we have to make it a weekend retreat? Even sarcasm: Look, we are not Americans. We are not going to applaud the idea.

Okay, fair enough.

But perhaps, nevertheless, a tiny victory. Moving out of the muddy Denial stage into wilds of Resistance is progress; certainly something to include on the Success Story page of my first trimester report.

And now, with this acuerdo, I don’t have to explore a Peace Corps Plan B – at least for now. I can dive into preparing a survey of the Consejo and creating the best teambuilding workshop I can – bringing all my experience, skills, tools, energy, even love, to the table – putting all of that into the PowerPoints and translations and participatory exercises – then letting go of the result.

Ojala…I’ll have (even) more ‘small success’ to report next quarter.

Not that a Gordita's Going to Save the World

I’m gradually losing my romantic notion of Peace Corps…adobe huts, smiling children engrossed in a simple game of futbol, Coke bottles for goals posts, fields of swaying maize, artisan senoritas spinning clay pots. Instead, it’s the potable water truck making its daily noisy rounds through the colonia, eh eh, ehhhh, eh eh, the orange vendor below my bedroom storming in and out of his gated home at all hours, the smell of exhaust through my window, the angry dogs behind bars exercising their lungs incessantly, a contemptible night-long symphony, the thumping of the Triple R, the Consejo’s resistance, hours in Cabildo meetings and no decisions – only proposals to build – a blood bank, another park, a police station – grand plans on architect’s paper – endless infrastructure, but no heart, soul, sol, sustainability. Maybe their inefficiency is a blessing.

And the young men with their suitcases, lined up on the curb in Jacarandas on Mondays, waiting for the bus to take them to the other side, take a risk, to pick tomatoes or bus tables, because it’s better than remaining here, unemployed, scraping an existence out of exhausted soil.

I’m afraid I’m blocking out what’s fast-becoming the daily scenery – the beauty of it – the woman in the headscarf, on the corner of Madero and Juarez, cleaning, trimming and bagging nopal cactus for sale at her prestine corner tienda. Or Sarape, the elote man in his three-wheeled cart. He paints his corns like a Matisse canvas - impressionistic brushstrokes of mayonnaise and chile sauce, sprinkled with cheese and proudly finished off with a squirt of lime. Or Abuelita's komal brimming with enchiladas Rioverdenses - a smear of bean, a dollop of pollo, a sprinkle of queso and a spoonful of chili love.

And the harsh reality of it – the old woman who panhandles on the stoop of the SEMARNAT office where I work. I pass by each day and hear her moans, her hand outstretched, her laminated letter I’ve never bothered to read. And on the steps of the pharmacy, there’s the old man with his pant leg lifted, exposing his mangled limb, and holding his ball cap of measly coins in his free hand. I brush by them, on my way.

I’m starving – rushing off to Dianna’s taco stand for a midday migada de lomo – I can almost taste the salty pork and the sweet raw onion and slices of creamy avocado piled between fresh-pressed corn tortillas. But the old lady stops me, motions her fingers by her mouth – hungry too.

I stop, nod, okay, what would you like, gorditas? What kind?

Frijol …y…she pauses, tests me…chicharon…ita. Just a little bit of chicharon. Then she really presses her luck, holding up fingers, two, three, four.

Four?! I laugh. How much is enough? One, frijol con chicharon, por favor. Dianna serves it up wrapped carefully in a napkin. And the old lady, for once up and on her feet to receive her treat, smiles. Her brown lined face blossoms like a flower. And for a moment I remember why I’m here.

Not that a gordita is going to save the world. Nor will it make the Peace Corps brochure. But…

Ni Modo

They're sealing up the back windows - perfect open squares that let in the air and light - with cinder block - four to a hole, and sloppily securing them with cement - dripping on the floor - the worker on the ladder dumbfounded as I exclaim, No, what are you doing?! in English, because when I am emotional I still revert to my native tongue. Que tu estas haciendo?

Pues no sei, following orders, is the apologetic response. Dust and cement everywhere, the place a total mess, as though a tornado has come through over the weekend, since we made the deal, and I promised to come with the deposit on Monday.

I've got the roll of pessos in my in my pocket ready commit, to begin my own life in Green River [Ranch] after five months living with host families - sharing toilets, air space, gorditas, morning conversation in sleepy Spanish. After 20 years living on my own. And after 2 months of searching the city for a place to settle down, then a week of toiling over the decision, I'd finally decided on this place with light.

High on the top floor above the people, with a large balcony and a view of the church steeple - I could breathe, drink my morning coffee, practice a few new verbs, and contemplate my day before entering the fray. But it wasn't perfect - expensive, in disrepair, cracks in the walls, fixtures hanging from holes in the ceiling, a super who I detected was already attempting to take advantage of me, and worst of all, with the marble floors and gated entrance and condo feel, not exactly fitting with my image as a Peace Corps volunteer.

And now they're closing up all the back windows. Why? We're calling the owner to find out. The rain. I haven't seen a drop of rain since I arrived in November. And are there are no other options but cinderblock? How about glass?

Dan, my Peace Corps counterpart, says now you know how the Mexicans feel. This kind of thing happens all the time, with no warning or explanation.

Yes, of course. This is just an apartment. But what about the bigger things - the currency crash of 1994 under Salinas when they all lost everything.

Ni modo, is the expression I hear everyday, said with a shrug of the shoulders. It means there's nothing I can do - nothing I could ever do - so why bother trying.

But there IS something I can do. I can say No. I can keep my 3500 pessos and walk away. It's the only power you have over the system at times.

Or as Michael Keaton put it in that cinamatic tour de force, Nightshift, with Henry Winkler and Shelly Long, I choose 'to shun, from the Latin, to push away... to say uh-uh no thank you anyway I don't want it.'

That's what I do...I walk away from the mess and head to Jiminez where Margarita has a sweet, clean, furnished studio with hotplate and mini-fridge, services included, half the price, and befitting of a Peace Corps volunteer.

Discovering Green River - Discovering the Consejo - Discovering My Self

Two-month anniversary in my sitio of Rioverde - or as it's colloquially referred to by my new friend Claudia (a local Rioverdense, so she has the right to call it names), ‘Green River Ranch.’

So what's it like in this rural pueblo smack in the center of Mexico? It's a myriad of contradictions, a roller-coaster of altas y abajos. But today's a good day, nothing's wrong, no Montezuma's revenge or homesickness. a quiet Sunday, warm and sunny, breeze through the vertical blinds, Internet is working, ideas are flowing. My host family is gone for the afternoon and I find myself reflecting...

Yes, I'm settling in, actually pretty happy some days, most days, feeling relatively safe and secure here...despite narco news and armed military presence in Plaza Principal. I feel cared for by new friends and ‘family’, engaged if not getting rapidly over-engaged in projects, to the chagrin of my Peace Corps bosses who remind me the first three months are meant to be dedicated to learning, Goals 2 y 3, not doing. And I know they are right; but I learn by doing.

And hence, I'm doing a lot, diving in, making sense of the life and culture here - and some days that’s more confounding as time goes on, as my Spanish improves, as the layers of politeness wear-off revealing the truth, personal agendas, raw humanness, a culture of distrust. Or maybe it’s me, the gringa, creating it, bringing my hard driving good ideas and intentions to the mesa – and maybe it’s not enough.

I don’t necessarily like this, but I have to face it...the truth that this is not easy…this fitting in, finding my space, finding my home here …when maybe what I have to say or do is not particularly welcomed with open arms or minds.

But I forge ahead…with Patience & Perseverance…my new mantra; try to focus my energy where it will at least do no harm.

I start my yoga class on Thursday night with the Nutrispa chicas and their nutrition clients. They are posting things on Facebook about it, and that’s making me nervous. I’ve never taught a yoga class before, much less a class of complete beginners across a language and culture divide! But I forge ahead, because you never know where something will lead.

Taking just one step, one action, following through on an intention to have yoga in my life again, to share it with the girls at the spa, because there is no place else to practice in Green River Ranch except on the floor of my quarto – this intention is leading me to learn more deeply about the ancient tradition of yoga, the union of mind and body through the breath, and the more practical side: how to translate ‘downward dog' to Spanish!

I tell myself no harm can come of this…to share a practice like this, steeped in a tradition of mindfulness, even with the ricos, the ladies of Rioverde who can afford spa treatments. And this is a relief. It’s a practice that can and should be taken, stolen, used, spread, shared – and it can only lead to more good (plus a few free facials in exchange).

But there are times, after two months on site, where I feel timid about taking any action - I'm almost paralyzed - for fear of it being the wrong action with the wrong group of people at the wrong time – or any one of the above. Paulo Freire talks about the insidiousness of oppression – how despite best intentions, we can become part of the problem; in 'helping' we can reinforce the status quo and the belief by the people that they cannot possibly do it themselves.

I turned down teaching positions at two universities just this last week because I wasn’t sure – the arguments compelling, my desire to help strong…but needing time to see, to sense, where can I best be of service? Am I really ready to teach a brand new course in Marketing or Consulting or Non-Profit Management – in Spanish? Will I really be helping the students? MySelf? I don’t even believe in marketing, I told Mario, the University director. But this did not faze him. He needed me, a free resource, an American perspective, an experiment, he called it. Next semester, I promised him, when the experiment can be a little better controlled - and I know more.

Moreover, I am beginning to wonder about my work with the Consejo on Sustainability – my primary assignment and reason for being here in Rioverde. This group of six educated citizens - representatives from academia, business, agriculture, government, ecology, social services - was selected by a joint committee of Mayor’s office and SEMARNAT and Peace Corps representatives (including myself) to represent the people of Rioverde in promoting a UN sustainability initiative called Agenda 21.

Are they the right group with whom to direct my energy? Are their intentions good? Are they ready to represent the people? Are they open to learning and sharing? They are an intelligent bunch and willing to give up their time and energy to serve as volunteers on this board, providing the links between the government and the people of Rioverde, trying to create a culture of awareness of the environment and social needs, and take actions that serve the greater good.

Yet we have just barely begun, the group has taken their oath in Cabildo, and already there is resistance: swirling conversations that lead nowhere, their focus on external forces out of their control, and underlying tone of blame (of the government for their corruption and the people for their apathy), and perhaps underneath that, anger, shame, and forgetting (or not believing) that the answers LIE WITHIN THEM.

I do believe that. It’s the reason I left Washington and joined the Peace Corps – to escape the marble halls where it’s all just talk and work with people on the ground where real change happens.

This is at the heart of my assignment – to help the Consejo believe that too – see that in the others that they will serve – the people in the communities - like Rose in Magdalenas with her center de salud made of trash bottles or Chuey in San Jose supporting the family with her palm jewelry. And in turn, we help la gente see that in themselves - so the change truly comes from them. It's the only way.

Coming together as a small group will be that first step. And that is my goal for this first workshop with the Consejo – to help them understand themselves a little bit better, their motives for participation, and their fellow board-members as well – so that can start the shift from a random collection of people waiting at a bus stop to group with a common purpose and desire for collective action. And maybe in that process, I will better understand my Self and my motives too.

Final Hurrah in Queretaro y Taco Chon's

It starts with a reverent sunset parade at Plaza Independencia, catching my final dose of patriotic pomp and circumstance – the operatic national anthem, the lowering and folding of the flag, the torch-led march out of the square, thus officially closing the day – and my three months’ stay in this beautiful historic pueblo before heading to the boonies of Rioverde.

I capture some grainy shots with my Blackberry, then head to Neblina Café. I’ve been invited by the owner, the lettuce man, to a celebration of Dia dos Muertos. I sit and wait and nurse my beer as they setup – smells of incense and goiaba fill the air. They are disorganized, having troubles with the sound system – wonder if I should have come. Sparse crowd, people gradually trickle in. They are an hour behind schedule, right on Mexican time, as the show opens with Chichimeca chants and a cacophony of bird calls and a man with broken chords in his throat, beautiful and piercing. Then a dance of the dead to synthesized samples, moody dark, spare, as an old hag wrapped in black gauze gradually unravels herself, slicing through layers of oppression, they drop to the ground, revealing a smile, skin, the person within.

From the cosmic to the social, I head to Aleph Bar for a final hurrah with my PC09 compañeros – liter tall beers and spicy michaladas, smoke-filled courtyard, cold enough to see my breath. I shiver and listen to the banter, miss the jokes, even in English, and sip my giant Victoria. We are all going our separate ways tomorrow after three months of training and bonding – and a sense of the unknown hangs in the air. Each of us off to different sites to fulfill our Peace Corps duty; PST is not the Peace Corps, we’re told. We are about to find out what is.

It’s time. I’m tired of speaking English and pondering my Mexican future, but not diving in, instead hovering at the edge of youthful cliques clinging to each other, concocting plans to be together, zip lines from one community to the other, smoke and laughter bubbling out of them, masking fear and loneliness and there purpose for being here. We will surely learn soon, or not, it’s about something bigger than us, or not. Everyone has their own story – and in two years it’s certain to change.

I leave my pesos on the table, slide my half-drunk beer over to one of the boys, and slip out into the night, down the dark cobblestone street, toward the beconing lights of Garibaldi Street. It's late, no early, the wee hours and the place is cleared out, no problem finding a stool at Chon’s. Dos con res, por favor.

Chon nods, recognizing the gringa, tosses and slings beef and onions on the hot griddle, and piles two double-layered corn tortillas high with steamy meat. I take the plate from over the counter; it’s a real plate covered in a plastic baggie – a unique and ecological system of reuse that I’ve come to appreciate. The girls behind the counter with silver eye shadow smile shyly, wondering…I smile back, wondering. I snap some photos with my cell through the greasy glass. The senoritas giggle and sip hot pulche from Styrofoam cups.

I dress my tacos with green sauce, red sauce, chopped cilantro and onion, pickled radish, a squirt of lime – salty, sweet, spicy, tangy, crunchy, chewy rolls of wonder. Until my first time at Chon’s, I thought a taco was a taco was a taco. But I’ve learned.

Embracing Hacer

Today is the day I embrace the verb hacer – to do, to make, done, did, made. It’s the most irregular verb in the book; I talk around it as best I can – but sometimes there’s no handy alternative.

Puede hacerlo, yes you can, I tell myself, deftly utilizing the infinitive. Meandering through the Marista school yard on the way home from another day of PST, the shadows long, my head full of lessons, I decide it will be my homework…to construct a table, fill it in, practice aloud, use in a sentence, rinse, repeat, hope something sticks…

Present/Indicativo Hago Haces Hace	Hacemos Hacen
Past/Pretérito Hice Hiciste Hizo	Hicimos Hicieron
Past/Imperfecto Hacia Hacías Hacia	Hacíamos Hacían
Subjuntivo Haga Hagas Haga	Hagamos Hagan
Futuro Hare Harás Hará	Haremos Harán

Lo hizo! I did it! Now if I can just remember which is which in context, in a real conversation.

Note in Spanish how the direct object comes before the verb – the indirect object too sometimes. So aside from having 25 conjugation possibilities to choose from for every darn verb, gotta pause and remember where to stick your objects.